


one step at a time

by ihaveyellowflowers



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihaveyellowflowers/pseuds/ihaveyellowflowers
Summary: Seeing Bokuto again after three years was like a sudden douse of ice water on a cold winter’s night.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	one step at a time

**Author's Note:**

> pssst want some vague angsty feels with no true resolution

The winters here are mild, almost pleasant, compared to the biting chill of Tokyo. 

It was a good decision to come here for university. Tokyo is just a shinkansen ride away, but there’s almost nothing here that reminds him of home.

Akaashi prides himself on his adaptability.

_

Seeing Bokuto again after three years was like a sudden douse of ice water on a cold winter’s night.

He looks good, Akaashi thinks mildly.

Not the same, no – his shoulders are broader now, his back and arms have put on more muscle, and his grin, while still large and infectious, had lost some of that sharp edge. Bokuto had grown into himself well, wearing confidence like a second skin, like it came from somewhere solid and stable and no longer like an ill-fitting shirt to cover up his insecurities. He looked good like this.

Still speaking on the phone, Bokuto glances left first, and then right, clearly looking for someone, red scarf swirling around him. Akaashi ducks behind a corner.

Akaashi knows better than to wonder why he’s here, in Akaashi’s university on the other side of the island which doesn’t even have a proper volleyball team. Because what else could Bokuto be but a volleyball idiot? This isn’t an evening romance drama where a chance meeting will set the train back on its tracks and the earth back on its proper axis. Fate doesn’t exist, and it’s better not to wonder why.

He turns on his heel and walks away, the sound of Bokuto’s voice ringing in his ears.

-

He wonders all the same.

_

People tended to think that Bokuto was the temperamental one in their (former, long-gone, never-getting-back-together-again) relationship. But despite his unpredictable histrionics on the court, Bokuto could be surprisingly composed when away from it. 

And Akaashi admitted that, for all his reliability on the court, he could be downright immature off it.

Three years is a long time to think about what they had.

_

_< < Haven’t seen you around these few days >> _Kenma texts him.

_< < Just been studying >> _Akaashi replies, forcefully closing 17 tabs of ’50 Saddest Songs to Get Over a Broken Heart’, and ’Best All-Japan College Level Spikes 2010-2015’, and ‘BEST RAMEN UPGRADES TO COOK LIKE A MASTERCHEF’ on his laptop like he’s never opened them in the first place.

_

Akaashi spies him again, two days later, in the cafeteria.

Bokuto cut a dashing figure in his university’s black and gold jacket amidst the placid ocean of blue. Nose wrinkled deep in thought, he casually towered over everyone in the queue as he scrutinized the menu, hand tapping arrhythmically on his tray. Akaashi was struck by a sudden and familiar urge to hold that hand in his.

(“Bokuto, you’ll injure your fingers if you keep clicking them on the table.”

“It just gives me something to do, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to be nervous; you’ll be a great captain.”

“I’m not! I know I’ll be the best captain Fukurodani ever had - I’m the ace after all!”

“Mmm.”

“Akaashi! What are you…doing…“

“As I thought, your fingernails are chipped now. It’ll be nasty if they break while you’re spiking, so let me file them down, alright?”

“Yes- no- I mean- ”

“You’re welcome, Bokuto.”)

Akaashi’s hand spasms.

He could, like a mature young adult, join the dinner queue where Bokuto was, express surprise at Bokuto’s presence, and perhaps say hello. Ask if he’s here for a friendly match. Maybe even recommend the cafeteria’s special.

Make amends, in a sense.

But it feels disingenuous to make banal small talk when his last words to said person were along the lines of _“I would rather stop playing competitive volleyball than ever seeing you again_ ” and only on-and-off regretting that he couldn’t take them back whenever he was feeling maudlin. Remembering them feels like spurs prickling under his skin.

“It won’t kill you to say hi,” Kenma murmurs.

In the queue, a girl jostles to Bokuto’s side and points at a recommendation on the menu. Bokuto looks down and beams.

…Yes, yes, it would.

Akaashi turns arounds and stalks right to the row of vending machines, urging his stomach to desire a pre-packaged sandwich instead.

_

They’d cut each other with words; at first by accident, and later on with purpose.

Where other lovers bared their souls, they sliced and tore into each other, protecting what they wouldn’t give and coveting what they couldn’t get.

There were so many things he could be blaming: circumstances, stress, plain old childishness – but really, he only blames himself.

_

He sees him again, on the track.

Bokuto doesn’t like running on the track, Akaashi remembered. It made him feel like he was running an endless race.

(“That’s the whole point of a track.”

“Yeah but,” Bokuto grumbled at the reddish pebbled floor, “It’s so boring without a goal.”

“The distance covered is a goal.” Akaashi reminded him. “Endurance training is a goal.”

“The _journey_ should be the goal,” Bokuto argued. “Running for the sake of running only wears down your mind!”

“Your mind, maybe,” Akaashi flicks his towel at Bokuto’s head.

“Wouldn’t it be more fun running outside? Beside the canal?” Bokuto was gaining steam now.

Konoha wrinkled his nose. “And dodging people? And exhaust from the cars? And what if the pavement is uneven? Nah, I’d rather run comfortably here”

“You guys are boring!” Bokuto complained.)

But Bokuto was running with a purpose now. Eyes fixed into the far-off mountains, mouth a grim line, he looks like every step will bring him towards a tangible goal – a goal that was not an arbitrary finish line demarcated by a person with a stopwatch.

Akaashi was reminded, again, that this was not the Bokuto he knew.

But, Akaashi thought, he’s not the same person either. Scraping his shoe clean of mud, he tears his eyes away, and continues on his own meander down the hillside path.

_

Kenma asks him how many times he’s died by now.

Loading a new game, Akaashi elects to ignore him.

_

_< < It’s not healthy to stay in your room all day >> _Kenma texted. Privately, Akaashi thinks that’s a bit rich coming from him.

_< < I’m studying >> _Akaashi lies.

_< For finals >>_ Blatently.

_

_< < Can I bring you some onigiri? >>_ Kenma asks.

Momentarily touched, Akaashi replies, _< < If it’s not too much trouble >>_

_< < No trouble at all >>_

_< < You’re a great friend >>_

_

Five minutes later, he slams his door shut and pulls it tight.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto’s frantic voice drifts out from the other side of the door and reverberates down the hallway. “Akaashi, I just wanted to talk to you!” The door handle creaks under the opposing forces of Akaashi pulling the door shut and of Bokuto trying to pull it open.

_I’m going to kill Kenma,_ he thinks.

“Please- can you just- ” Bokuto heaves, rattling the flimsy plywood door, and Akaashi has to brace a foot against the wall. “Just calm down!”

“I’m calm,” Akaashi wouldn’t call it a shriek, just a slightly elevated pitch.

“You aren’t! You’re panicking-”

“I’m not. I’m absolutely calm.”

“What? No man, you’re shouting-”

“I’m extremely calm! I’m the definition of calm!” Akaashi yells.

“Okay! Okay, okay, you’re calm, you’re calm,” Bokuto tries to appease him, but it’s clear he has no idea what he’s doing.

I should be the one de-escalating this situation, Akaashi thinks hysterically, it’d always been me.

“Where’s Kenma?” Akaashi asks instead.

“Well, erm, he’s not here.”

“Did Kuroo put him up to this?” Akaashi demands.

“Not quite,” Bokuto had the decency to sound abashed. “I told Kuroo that I saw you here a few days ago and I wanted to talk to you again, a-about everything, but I just couldn’t find you, so Kuroo got Kenma to talk to me, and hey! Turns out Kenma studies here too! So erm, he told me to stay in his room, and then he went out, and erm, here we are!” Bokuto ended nervously.

The gears turn in Akaashi’s head, and he can only conclude that 1) No amount of time will let him live this down, and that 2) _Kozume Kenma must die_.

“Don’t get mad, okay, Akaashi?” Bokuto’s voice quivered. “They just wanted to help.”

Akaashi replies tiredly, “Which one of us are they helping, really.”

“Not which one,” Bokuto pauses. “Us. Both of us.”

Akaashi breathes deeply, in, out, in, out, not answering.

“We have nothing to talk about, Bokuto.”

“We have everything to talk about, Keiji.” Bokuto argues from the other side of the door.

Akaashi thinks how ridiculous they are to be in this situation right now, two people stubbornly orbiting each other like satellites of the same mass, gravitational pull hauling them towards one another in one moment before swinging them away from a frightful collision the next, over and over again. They’ll destroy one another if one of them gives in.

“We tried, Koutarou,” Akaashi says. “Don’t you remember?” The fights, the angry words, the cold silences. “I can’t do that again.”

A few seconds of silence, and Akaashi hears a deep inhale on the other side of the door.

“It’s been three years, Keiji, and we’ve both grown, and we might even be different people now. I wish we could have grown together, but I think, and I hope that, you’re still you, and I’m still me. I’m sorry for everything I said before, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say this before yo-“ Bokuto’s voice breaks, “-before you left. If I could take back everything that I said in the heat of the moment, everything that had hurt you, I would, and I never meant for it to escalate to that point, but it just happened, and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that you stopped volleyball because of me, I hated that. I know you never wanted to see me again.”

“But if I lose this chance to speak to you, I’ll never forgive myself,” Bokuto gasped between ragged breaths.

Akaashi’s mind churned.

_

Forehead against the door, Akaashi lets go.

The door swings inward with a thump.

_

“For the record, I didn’t stop volleyball because of you.”

_

The summers here are fierce, even worse than the sweltering heat in Tokyo.

Tokyo is just a shinkansen ride away, but what’s a few hours hours compared to three years?

He’s a different person now, but so’s Akaashi. They aren’t always together, but that’s fine.

They’ll find their way to each other again,

step

by

step.

**Author's Note:**

> There's just something about bokuaka that makes them so perfect for angst.
> 
> But then it devolved into this angst-but-not-quite-angst thing.
> 
> It took me almost 9 months to get the past/present tense thing to my liking - I kind of regret ever writing in present tense, it would've much less confusing if I'd just stuck to past, and I'm still not quite sure if it worked as intended in this fic. Oh well, practice makes perfect!
> 
> Thanks for reading this and feel free to comment or pm me with any concrit ((:


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